Microchip deal off; broker courting other buyers

By KRISTYN HALBIG ZIEHM

Ozaukee Press staff

PORT WASHINGTON - A microchip manufacturer has decided not to purchase thousands of acres of mostly farmland in the Town of Port Washington for a sprawling manufacturing facility, although another buyer is being sought, town residents said Tuesday.

That news, they said, came late last week from Jeff Hoffman, a principal with Cushman & Wakefield/Boerke, a Milwaukee commercial real estate firm that had negotiated contracts to purchase the town land for the semiconductor facility and is now courting other buyers.

Hoffman has roughly 2,000 acres of Town of Port Washington land under contract for the semiconductor factory, and the property owners said it sounds as if multiple buyers are interested in their land.

The development of a microchip facility would have involved the City of Port Washington provided it annexed the land, and on Tuesday Mayor Ted Neitzke, who along with aldermen promised to keep details of the facility a secret by signing nondisclosure agreements, declined to comment on news Port Washington was no longer in the running for the facility.

Town supervisors Gary Schlenvogt and Greg Welton said they are relieved to hear the plant is not going to be built in their community.

Both said that town residents confirmed to them that the chip maker was no longer interested in the town as its new location.

“It’s a relief to me,” Schlenvogt said. “We couldn’t afford to lose 1,000 acres of tax base.”

Welton said  that while it would be nice to have more business in the area, “I would like to see Port grow at a good rate, not that fast. Yes, we could use some industrial and commercial growth in the area, but we don’t want everything to change in the town.”

It isn’t surprising that other companies may be eying the same properties, Welton added, noting that the area has many amenities and is now in the public eye.

“Just because this one’s dead doesn’t mean six months from now something else doesn’t come along,” he said.

Town Chairman Mike Didier could not be reached for comment.

The Town of Port land was among three sites being considered by the microchip producer for a manufacturing facility — the other sites are in Ohio and Indiana.

The chip maker was poised to pay $42,000 per acre for the town land, which was said to be in an area that extends north from Knellsville at the town’s border with the City of Port Washington to roughly Dixie Road and is west of I-43 and east of the Ozaukee Interurban Trail.

If the land had been chosen by the company for its plant, the firm would likely have sought annexation to the City of Port.

For months, residents and officials in the town and city of Port Washington have been waiting to hear if the town land would be selected by the microchip producer for its plant.

But little is known about the company, which has gone unnamed.

Property owners who agreed to sell their land signed nondisclosure agreements and City of Port Washington officials who did the same met in closed session to discuss the project, then hired two law firms and a financial adviser to guide it through a “large economic development project” that could entail the annexation of land and creation of a tax incremental financing district.

Despite a request and repeated follow-up queries from Ozaukee Press, the city has not released the nondisclosure agreements signed by officials.

The Press has also requested a number of other records related to the closed session, including communications the city received or sent to the entity responsible for the potential development project or its representatives, but it has received no response.

The city may also be involved in other projects involving the town land, and one resident said Tuesday a meeting between Neitzke and the landowners was planned.

Neitzke, however, said he has not been invited to such a meeting.